SANAA, 18 September 2003 — Yemen extradited to the Kingdom yesterday eight Saudi nationals wanted by Riyadh on criminal and terrorism charges, Yemeni security sources said.
The sources told Arab News that envoys from the Saudi Interior Ministry flew to Sanaa to bring back the fugitives who had fled to Yemen at different times this year.
The extradition at Sanaa International Airport came under a security cooperation pact between the two countries, the sources said.
Among the eight handed over was Bandar ibn Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi, who is believed to be a member of a group that planned terror acts in Riyadh.
Al-Ghamdi is reportedly among a group of 19 wanted militants listed in a Saudi warrant issued a week before the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh which killed 35 people.
He was sent back to Riyadh along with his wife, Nawal Abdullah, and a newly born daughter, Yemeni Interior Ministry officials said.
The officials did not provide more information about the identities of the other seven suspects or the charges against them.
Also handed over were the bodies of two Saudi fugitives killed in Yemen, the officials said, adding that one of them was shot dead by his brother, who was accompanying on his escape to Yemen. The murderer was among those extradited, said the Yemeni officials, giving no details about the other body.
Sanaa and Riyadh have already swapped a number of suspects, some of them wanted by authorities in both countries on charges of involvement in terror acts.
The most recent security swap was on Aug. 17, when the Kingdom sent to Yemen four terror suspects, among whom were two linked to last year’s bombing of the French oil supertanker, the Limburg, off the coast of Yemen.
